A Super Special Friday Night

It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m tucked into a sleeping bag and laying on a cement floor (I forfeited my flimsy yoga mat to the six year old who is sleeping beside me). We are tucked in – the lights have been turned down and there are 61 other campers spread out around the room. We were told it was time to go to sleep and it appears everyone is obliging, or at least pretending to. It’s eerily quiet, not a cough, snore or giggle competes with the sound of running water behind our heads.

We are camped out in Stellar’s Bay – a new exhibit at the Vancouver Aquarium. It’s the yearly Volunteer Sleepover. Each volunteer was permitted to bring a guest – I invited my six year old granddaughter. She is one of three people in the world that this Gramma would sleep on the floor for.

We have had an exciting evening. It was like we’d been locked in a museum for the night – long hallways dimly lit, shadowy exhibits, empty corridors – it was magical. We were given license to wander for a while before we were assigned a guide for the evening.

My six year old signed us up for a scavenger hunt (she is ‘prize’ motivated). We had 20 questions to answer in order to win – each required a hunt through a gallery reading signage. We didn’t win — we had a few obstacles to contend with. My partner can’t read, my partner was very excited, my partner talks a lot, my partner was wearing a pedometer for the first time in her life and very focused on counting her steps while we searched the galleries (big mistake gramma, you didn’t think that one through). Gramma can’t read well in the dark, Gramma is easily distracted while trying to read in the dark, Gramma wanted to quit the hunt but her partner said we should at least ‘try’ — which Gramma pretended to do. We were unfocused but very enthusiastic and one of us was a little disappointed that we didn’t win something for at least trying.

We did win a prize in a random draw however, which took the sting out of the scavenger hunt loss a little. We scored a late night snack. And our guide took us on a behind the scenes tour of the secret passages between the exhibits. We ogled tiny baby Spiny Lumpsuckers and tiny baby Jelly Fish. We peeked into the back windows of galleries and stared down into exhibits we had just walked in front of. We had a birds eye view of sleeping Clown Fish, Crabs, Salmon and kelp. It was amazing!

Then we went into the wet lab (which is awesome with a capital A if you’re six and don’t mind dunking your hand into freezing water to stroke slimy creatures). We got to pet Sea Cucumbers, hold a fairly large pinching crab, play with urchins and sniff the armpit of a sea star (which smelled remarkably like garlic). It was almost too much.

And then we were marched down the steep cement stairs into the underwater viewing area to scope out a spot where we could lay our weary heads for the night. We were the obvious rookies in the crowd – people grabbed their air mattresses, foamies and sleeping bags and secured all the good spots before my partner and I could divi up our load.

We eventually found a decent camp site and set ourselves up. We stood in line for a spot at one of four sinks shared by 45 women to brush our teeth. We crawled in our bags and one of us fell immediately to sleep. I fear the other of us will find the night long and the floor hard but won’t mind a bit. This adventure has been magical (with a capital M if you’re a gramma who doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor beside an exhausted six year old and sharing a memory with her that will last a lifetime).